Political Scene: “Throw the Bums Out” Edition

“Some of the more astute political people in the White House are probably secretly hoping for the Republicans to do well in November,” John Cassidy says on this week’s Political Scene podcast. That will give him a chance to distance himself from one of his biggest problems since taking office, Cassidy argues: his alignment with “the most unpopular institution in the country,” Congress.

Congress has a ten-per-cent approval rating. If you’re the President, and you’re in line with Congress, your approval rating inevitably asymptotes toward that ten per cent. If the Republicans control Congress, then suddenly they’re associated with this incredibly unpopular institution, and I think there’s going to be a good chance of a repeat of what happened in the mid nineteen-nineties.

Just as the Republican takeover of Congress under Newt Gingrich preceded a sweeping second-term win for Bill Clinton, a sway toward the red this year could help insure a swing back toward the blue by 2012.

James Surowiecki, who joins Cassidy and host Dorothy Wickenden on the podcast, agrees that a big midterm win for the Republicans sets them up as the new scapegoats, which could in turn help the Democrats. According to polls, Surowiecki says, voters’ dissatisfaction with Democrats is less a result of whom they trust to handle the economy or who they think is doing a better job in office. Rather, it’s part of the “throw the bums out” mentality—a general dissatisfaction with whomever is in power. “It seems very likely to me that if the Republicans end up in Congress,” Surowiecki says, “they will quickly become the bums.”